86 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



For mere detachment, mere self-will, can never be sat- 

 isfied with itself, can never win its goal. What saves 

 us on any level of human social life is union." 



ROYCE : The Hope of the Great Community : 

 The Yale Review, January, 1916. 



THE ELDER SOLDIER IN THE BROTHERHOOD TO 

 THE YOUNGER 



Dear comrade, at whose feet thus now I kneel, 



Of you perhaps so soon to be seen no more 

 Here I give you my charge, that afterwards remembering 



and desiring me, 

 You may find me in these others. 



Slowly out of their faces I will emerge to you lo! I 



swear it, 

 By the falling rain and dimpled thunderclouds in the 



East I swear it 



[To become your life whom I have loved so long] 

 With love absorbing, joy and blessedness enclosing, 

 I will emerge to you. 



That you now to other comrades, and these again to 

 others, 



Over the whole world may bear the glad covenant, per- 

 fected, finished 



To form an indissoluble union and compact, a brother- 

 hood unalterable, 



Far-pervading, fresh and invisible as the wind, united 

 in Freedom 



A golden circle of stamens, hidden beneath the petals of 

 humanity, 



And guarding the sacred ark. 



